{"id":2876,"date":"2026-08-19T22:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T22:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=2876"},"modified":"2026-08-19T22:00:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T22:00:31","slug":"natalie-harps-relationship-to-trump-inspires-a-media-frenzy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=2876","title":{"rendered":"Natalie Harp’s Relationship to Trump Inspires a Media Frenzy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tIn early 2024, while reporting a story on New York\u2019s boisterous, controversial<\/a> Young Republican Club, one of my sources told me they had a pretty direct line to Donald Trump<\/a> himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the time, Trump wasn\u2019t president again \u2014 yet. But he was campaigning, and in order to get something in front of his eyes you had to first get the attention of someone else: his assistant and right-hand woman, Natalie Harp<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHarp, 35, is now at the center of a major media frenzy, as Democrats like Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff<\/a> have seized upon her unusual relationship with her boss: part assistant, part hype-man, part gatekeeper. On Sunday night, Ossoff made a comment that many interpreted as an insinuation that Harp had a more personal relationship to the president.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cThe president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks,\u201d Ossoff said at a campaign event in Georgia. \u201cSee he doesn\u2019t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOssoff\u2019s comments set off a firestorm both in Democratic circles and the GOP\u2019s reactionary messaging apparatus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics,\u201d Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, posted on Monday morning. By Tuesday, the entire media ecosystem had weighed in \u2014 with some coming right out and saying what they thought Ossoff was implying in his joke, and detailing why it was out of bounds.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOssoff was clearly implying that Trump was having an affair with his staffer,\u201d Megyn Kelly wrote on X. Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna called him a \u201csexist arrogant jerk.\u201d Pundit Robby Starbuck wrote that \u201cOssoff is a vile coward for insinuating they\u2019re having an affair.\u201d The flood of backlash poured out of just about every conservative commentator you could think of.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe White House joined the fray after CNN posed a question about Harp to Trump, asking him to respond to Ossoff\u2019s comments directly. \u201cYou mean Pee-Wee Herman?\u201d Trump quipped in the moment, referring to Ossoff. His comms team went for a full broadside later online. \u201cSomeday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question,\u201d Trump\u2019s rapid response account posted<\/a> at CNN reporter Kristen Holmes. \u201cThey will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It\u2019s quite troubling.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.@KristenhCNN<\/a> is a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession.@POTUS<\/a> hosts a hero lifeguard in the Oval Office and she uses it as an opportunity to take a cheap shot about one of President Trump’s staffers.<\/p>\n

These scumbags are the lowest of the low. pic.twitter.com\/oUrwbAtBfJ<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 17, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\n\tOssoff, meanwhile, tried to soften the blow of his joke, redirecting it \u2014 sort of \u2014 away from Harp herself to make it more of a comment on the president\u2019s relationship to his staff in general. \u201cI\u2019ve heard this particular aide referred to as his security blanket,\u201d he told Jen Psaki on MS NOW<\/a>. \u201cAnd I think we could say that about any number of the senior aides in the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the damage was done, and it\u2019s hard to believe Ossoff didn\u2019t know exactly what he was doing. In recent years, some Democrats have occasionally flirted<\/a> with the type of mud-slinging that Trump and his imitators became known for, but they\u2019ve rarely landed a hit that provoked this much of a reaction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat a coward. Own your sexist joke, bro,\u201d right-wing commentator Scott Jennings posted<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHarp\u2019s history \u2014 and her relationship to the president \u2014 give some clues as to why the Republican beehive is so agitated.<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tHarp began her career in the public eye as an anchor for One America News, a right-wing propaganda outlet that was founded in 2013 and became something of a mouthpiece for the Trump administration and then the MAGA movement during the Biden administration. Democrats and liberal commentators have pointed out that Harp was often fawning over Trump during her segments.<\/p>\n

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This is Natalie Harp, the close aide to President Trump. These clips are from 2021 when she worked at OAN. She ended her program with a daily Bible quote. Sometimes she swapped out the Bible for a quote from Trump leading with “And remember what Trump said\u2026” pic.twitter.com\/ROyf0gtwjl<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Decoding Fox News (@DecodingFoxNews) August 17, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\n\tWhile these clips have been used as more evidence that Trump and Harp have a strange dynamic, it\u2019s hard to say that this kind of content is outside of the norm for OAN\u2019s programming at the time. But that doesn\u2019t mean Harp\u2019s history with Trump isn\u2019t strange \u2014 even by MAGA supplicant standards.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the 2020 Republican National Convention, she said she was a bone cancer survivor and credited her survival to a \u201cRight to Try\u201d policy pushed by Trump in 2018 that allowed patients to use experimental drugs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I failed the chemotherapies that were on the market, no one wanted me in their clinical trials,\u201d Harp said at the RNC. \u201cThey didn\u2019t give me the right to try experimental treatments, Mr. President. You did, and without you, I\u2019d have died waiting for them to be approved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe<\/em> Washington Post<\/em>, however, notes<\/a> that the drug Harp used was already approved by the FDA \u2014 which would have meant that the \u201cRight to Try\u201d law wouldn\u2019t have applied.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, it\u2019s clear that Harp feels a close personal connection to Trump. After her short stint at OAN, the Post<\/em> cited her as a Trump employee<\/a> as early as 2022. In 2024, The<\/em> New York Times<\/em> reported<\/a> that Harp\u2019s primary role on Trump\u2019s staff was what other aides called \u201cthe human printer\u201d \u2014 following Trump around with a battery powered printer so she could give him physical copies of social media posts, missives, text messages, and positive, often conspiratorial news stories. The Post <\/em>story in 2022 also detailed her in this role, noting that other aides were \u201cparticularly distressed\u201d by her access to and influence with the president.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cShe is indicative of the people around him who just love him,\u201d one anonymous adviser told the Post<\/em> in 2022<\/a>. \u201cLove him too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Times\u2019 <\/em>reporting also noted that Harp\u2019s esteem for Trump was particularly fervent, describing how she wrote him a series of what the newspaper called \u201cdevotional letters,\u201d one of which said: \u201cYou are all that matters to me.\u201d The Times<\/em> described her running behind Trump\u2019s golf cart, reading him social media posts and news articles. Following one of those instances, the Times<\/em> reports<\/a> that she wrote him another letter, apologizing for being \u201can embarrassment\u201d while on the golf course in Scotland. \u201cI want things to always be right between us,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI also know I\u2019ve been distracted all week (forgetting to eat throughout the days, and even forgetting to sleep, and only catching a couple hours at a time).\u201d Harp signed the letter, \u201cWith all my heart, Natalie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHarp\u2019s family have acknowledged that her relationship to Trump is not that of a traditional staffer. In an interview with CNN on Tuesday night<\/a>, Harp\u2019s estranged brother Preston Harp said that \u201cSince she was 16 she\u2019s had an obsession with \u2013 she\u2019s written letters to other presidents, let me put it that way,\u201d Preston Harp said, mentioning \u201cGeorge Bush during the Iraq War\u201d and that \u201cher dream came true finally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThese details are certainly odd, but so is basically everything about the particularities of Trump\u2019s inner circle. Ossoff\u2019s comment, however, likely came at least partially in response to another outlandish story that broke earlier this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn August 10, the Post<\/em> reported that Trump had covertly switched planes<\/a> during a trip to Turkey, hiding in an airline catering truck with a tiny group of aides in order to dodge a potential attack on Air Force One by Iranian proxies. The White House press corps and several key government figures \u2014 including Secretary of State Marco Rubio \u2014 stayed on board the \u201cdecoy plane.\u201d Harp did not. She was reportedly in the food truck with Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s impossible to know the exact nature of Harp\u2019s relationship with Trump. Ossoff did not specifically mention an affair, though it\u2019s hard to interpret his familiar comment as anything else \u2014 and the right-wing media is reacting to it as such, trying to take a moral high ground on behalf of a president who has, at least in civil court, been found liable for sexual abuse on at least one count, and routinely makes sexist comments<\/a> toward female reporters and others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tJesse Watters of Fox News was one of the only right-wing commentators to recognize the hypocrisy of bashing Ossoff\u2019s comment while supporting Trump: \u201cAm I fazed by this comment? No. Has Trump said so much worse, so much more sleazy things against other people? Yes. Have I defended those things? Absolutely. So, I\u2019m not going to pretend to be all hot and bothered by it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatters is an outlier, though. No matter what the charges, Trump will always have his protectors in the GOP, some more loyal than others. In recent years, Natalie Harp has been more loyal than anyone else.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n